Pope Francis released his message for the 2018 liturgical season of Lent, which begins on Ash Wednesday, 14 February and the theme of this year’s message is: “Because of the increase of iniquity, the love of many will grow cold” (Mt 24:12). Ecojesuit shares the full text of the Pope’s Lenten message that mentions Creation itself becoming “a silent witness to this cooling of charity.”

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Once again, the Pasch of the Lord draws near! In our preparation for Easter, God in his providence offers us each year the season of Lent as a “sacramental sign of our conversion”.[1] Lent summons us, and enables us, to come back to the Lord wholeheartedly and in every aspect of our life.

With this message, I would like again this year to help the entire Church experience this time of grace anew, with joy and in truth. I will take my cue from the words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew: “Because of the increase of iniquity, the love of many will grow cold” (24:12).

These words appear in Christ’s preaching about the end of time. They were spoken in Jerusalem, on the Mount of Olives, where the Lord’s passion would begin. In reply to a question of the disciples, Jesus foretells a great tribulation and describes a situation in which the community of believers might well find itself: amid great trials, false prophets would lead people astray and the love that is the core of the Gospel would grow cold in the hearts of many.

False prophets

Let us listen to the Gospel passage and try to understand the guise such false prophets can assume.

They can appear as “snake charmers” who manipulate human emotions in order to enslave others and lead them where they would have them go. How many of God’s children are mesmerized by momentary pleasures, mistaking them for true happiness! How many men and women live entranced by the dream of wealth, which only makes them slaves to profit and petty interests! How many go through life believing that they are sufficient unto themselves, and end up entrapped by loneliness!

False prophets can also be “charlatans” who offer easy and immediate solutions to suffering that soon prove utterly useless. How many young people are taken in by the panacea of drugs, of disposable relationships, of easy but dishonest gains! How many more are ensnared in a thoroughly “virtual” existence, in which relationships appear quick and straightforward, only to prove meaningless! These swindlers, in peddling things that have no real value, rob people of all that is most precious: dignity, freedom and the ability to love. They appeal to our vanity, our trust in appearances, but in the end they only make fools of us. Nor should we be surprised. In order to confound the human heart, the devil, who is “a liar and the father of lies” (Jn 8:44), has always presented evil as good, falsehood as truth. That is why each of us is called to peer into our heart to see if we are falling prey to the lies of these false prophets. We must learn to look closely, beneath the surface, and to recognize what leaves a good and lasting mark on our hearts, because it comes from God and is truly for our benefit.

A cold heart

In his description of hell, Dante Alighieri pictures the devil seated on a throne of ice,[2] in frozen and loveless isolation. We might well ask ourselves how it happens that charity can turn cold within us. What are the signs that indicate that our love is beginning to cool?

More than anything else, what destroys charity is greed for money, “the root of all evil” (1 Tim 6:10). The rejection of God and his peace soon follows; we prefer our own desolation rather than the comfort found in his word and the sacraments.[3] All this leads to violence against anyone we think is a threat to our own “certainties”: the unborn child, the elderly and infirm, the migrant, the alien among us, or our neighbour who does not live up to our expectations.

Creation itself becomes a silent witness to this cooling of charity. The earth is poisoned by refuse, discarded out of carelessness or for self-interest. The seas, themselves polluted, engulf the remains of countless shipwrecked victims of forced migration. The heavens, which in God’s plan, were created to sing his praises, are rent by engines raining down implements of death.

Love can also grow cold in our own communities. In the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, I sought to describe the most evident signs of this lack of love: selfishness and spiritual sloth, sterile pessimism, the temptation to self-absorption, constant warring among ourselves, and the worldly mentality that makes us concerned only for appearances, and thus lessens our missionary zeal.[4]

What are we to do?

Perhaps we see, deep within ourselves and all about us, the signs I have just described. But the Church, our Mother and Teacher, along with the often bitter medicine of the truth, offers us in the Lenten season the soothing remedy of prayer, almsgiving and fasting.

By devoting more time to prayer, we enable our hearts to root out our secret lies and forms of self-deception,[5] and then to find the consolation God offers. He is our Father and he wants us to live life well.

Almsgiving sets us free from greed and helps us to regard our neighbour as a brother or sister. What I possess is never mine alone. How I would like almsgiving to become a genuine style of life for each of us! How I would like us, as Christians, to follow the example of the Apostles and see in the sharing of our possessions a tangible witness of the communion that is ours in the Church! For this reason, I echo Saint Paul’s exhortation to the Corinthians to take up a collection for the community of Jerusalem as something from which they themselves would benefit (cf. 2 Cor8:10). This is all the more fitting during the Lenten season, when many groups take up collections to assist Churches and peoples in need. Yet I would also hope that, even in our daily encounters with those who beg for our assistance, we would see such requests as coming from God himself. When we give alms, we share in God’s providential care for each of his children. If through me God helps someone today, will he not tomorrow provide for my own needs? For no one is more generous than God.[6]

Fasting weakens our tendency to violence; it disarms us and becomes an important opportunity for growth. On the one hand, it allows us to experience what the destitute and the starving have to endure. On the other hand, it expresses our own spiritual hunger and thirst for life in God. Fasting wakes us up. It makes us more attentive to God and our neighbour. It revives our desire to obey God, who alone is capable of satisfying our hunger.

I would also like my invitation to extend beyond the bounds of the Catholic Church, and to reach all of you, men and women of goodwill, who are open to hearing God’s voice. Perhaps, like ourselves, you are disturbed by the spread of iniquity in the world, you are concerned about the chill that paralyzes hearts and actions, and you see a weakening in our sense of being members of the one human family. Join us, then, in raising our plea to God, in fasting, and in offering whatever you can to our brothers and sisters in need!

The fire of Easter

Above all, I urge the members of the Church to take up the Lenten journey with enthusiasm, sustained by almsgiving, fasting and prayer. If, at times, the flame of charity seems to die in our own hearts, know that this is never the case in the heart of God! He constantly gives us a chance to begin loving anew.

One such moment of grace will be, again this year, the 24 Hours for the Lord initiative, which invites the entire Church community to celebrate the sacrament of Reconciliation in the context of Eucharistic adoration. In 2018, inspired by the words of Psalm 130:4, “With you is forgiveness”, this will take place from Friday, 9 March to Saturday, 10 March. In each diocese, at least one church will remain open for 24 consecutive hours, offering an opportunity for both Eucharistic adoration and sacramental confession.

During the Easter Vigil, we will celebrate once more the moving rite of the lighting of the Easter candle. Drawn from the “new fire”, this light will slowly overcome the darkness and illuminate the liturgical assembly. “May the light of Christ rising in glory dispel the darkness of our hearts and minds”,[7] and enable all of us to relive the experience of the disciples on the way to Emmaus. By listening to God’s word and drawing nourishment from the table of the Eucharist, may our hearts be ever more ardent in faith, hope and love.

With affection and the promise of my prayers for all of you, I send you my blessing. Please do not forget to pray for me.

From the Vatican, 1 November 2017

Solemnity of All Saints

[1] Roman Missal, Collect for the First Sunday of Lent (Italian)

[2] Inferno XXXIV, 28-29

[3] “It is curious, but many times we are afraid of consolation, of being comforted. Or rather, we feel more secure in sorrow and desolation. Do you know why? Because in sorrow we feel almost as protagonists. However, in consolation the Holy Spirit is the protagonist!” (Angelus, 7 December 2014)

The 21st century challenges of climate change and human health are the focus of the fifth Annual Climate Change Conference and hosted by the Institute of Environment Sustainability of Loyola University Chicago on 15 and 16 March 2018 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.

As the changing climate continues to disrupt other countries, the impacts have reached the US as eight consecutive storms that strengthened into powerful hurricanes hit the country last year during a 45-day period. Harvey devastated Houston with rainfall-triggered flooding and cost US$ 125 billion in damages in August 2017, followed by Hurricane Irma, the strongest storm on record to exist in the open Atlantic region that devastated the Florida Keys and left US$ 64.8 billion in damages. In September, Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico and much of the Caribbean with damages of US$ 91.6 billion. The next month, Hurricane Nate caused flooding and power outages in the central Gulf Coast with damages of US$ 207 million. Fatalities and survivors were high. When powerful hurricanes hit, these upset the economy, disrupt food systems, limit access to clean water, and put stress on the public health infrastructure.

The climate change conference will focus on climate change as a key driver for public health issues and features Gina McCarthy, former Administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency, as the keynote speaker. Four concurrent panel discussion sessions on 16 March tackle the following: the movement “We Are Still In” and why and how US leaders remain committed to Paris; Canada’s approach to climate change; oil, fracking, man camps, and human health along the oil pipelines; and climate refugees.

Ecojesuit and its activities will be shared by Pedro Walpole SJ, Ecojesuit coordinator, in one of the conference’s working sessions of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU) and Jesuit affiliates. The AJCU sessions on 15 March feature the following: Ecojesuits: An Introduction (with Pedro Walpole SJ), Ignatian Pedagogy for Sustainability (with Dr Kathleen Smythe and Dr Jay Leighter), and the Ecological Ignatian Examen (with Cecilia Calvo, senior advisor on environmental justice with the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the US, and who is part of the Ecojesuit team), and sustainable purchasing agreements.

The Reconciliation with Creation program of the Jesuit Conference Asia Pacific (JCAP) is organizing a series of Living Laudato Si’ workshops in Mindanao this year to contribute to the formation of apostolic communities of practice capable of reconciling with creation. By bringing together the experiences of Jesuits and justice, of communities of practice and discernment, the Living Laudato Si’ workshops allow participants to review their spirituality and discernment towards more effective planning and implementation in the various apostolates.

The first workshop on 21 to 25 January drew 32 participants from 13 Jesuit works in four countries. Coordination for workshop preparations was done through the monthly webinars of the JCAP Reconciliation with Creation Program.

The workshop dates dovetailed with the annual colloquium of the Society of Jesus Social Apostolate (SJSA) in the Philippines held the previous week in Cagayan de Oro in Mindanao, and the invitation broadened the Philippine participation. Many SJSA participants are involved in university ecological or social outreach programs and some teach in high school and college. Local parish participants took part as well and are part of the Bukidnon Mission District.

There are four objectives of the Living Laudato Si’ workshops: 1) to share an understanding of the challenges for Generation 2030; 2) to internalize what it means to pursue integral ecology in daily lives; 3) to form apostolic communities of practice capable of reconciling with creation; and 4) to discern the ecological action plans of 2018 for the various apostolates.

To achieve these, the process includes orientation lectures, country updates, and workshop sessions. These were complemented with daily activities to foster spiritual conversations among participants: morning reflections, local engagements, examen, and gathering for the Eucharist at the end of the day.

There were also discernment discussions on Fr. Sosa’s letters to the Society of Jesus (Our life is mission, mission is our life [8/2017], On discernment in common [11/2017], and Discernment of universal apostolic preferences [13/2017]) that guided workshop participants. In these letters, there is a request to be communities and institutes capable of experiencing reconciling with creation and to involve every apostolic work, drawing profit from the tensions and providing spiritual and intellectual depths during the process of discerning common apostolic planning and priorities.

Better collaboration is also sought towards more united action and communication in the following ecological action agenda, drawn from the global Ecojesuit statement in Bonn during COP23, United Climate Action for the Common Home:

Implementing programs and protocols for disaster risk reduction and supporting small island developing states and other communities throughout the world already suffering from massive floods and droughts as a result of climate change

Shifting from fossil fuels and destructive extraction industries that degrade both the environment and human rights, most often experienced by Indigenous Peoples and the marginalized who are increasingly criminalized for defending human rights, and this includes divestment efforts and an avoidance of a return to nuclear energy

Initiating and seeking greater agro-ecological food production, contributing to more collective forest, watershed, and marine resource management, reducing waste and ensuring the protection of adequate natural biomes so that agriculture and other land uses can be balanced, preventing ecosystem collapse

Engaging with communities, faith-based organizations, and church groups in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals and in this way, learn to simplify personal lifestyles and needs. The importance of personal reflection, such as the prayerful use of an ecological examen, helps sustain action and build dialogue and collaboration across parishes and institutions.

Promoting an education that ensures integral learning and participation and capable of forming a new generation with hope and responsibility to create a better world. The development of knowledge products like the Healing Earth text, the Ignatian Carbon Challenge, Flights for Forests, and strategic outcomes from environmental conferences and workshops are resources needing integration into an educational model for change.

Global, regional, and local ecological and socio-economic concerns greatly challenge individuals and institutions and apostolates. Serious social and ecological concerns in the Asia Pacific region call for different degrees of responses from various JCAP apostolates. For example, the small island states and their vulnerability to the threats of sea level rise were a focus of global attention and response in the UN COP23 climate change talks in Bonn.

The Living Laudato Si’ workshop therefore is an effort to support apostolic action and it is hoped that by joining, there is a further discernment strengthening and a deeper understanding into the suffering of the world and in addressing the root problems in collaboration with others.

The Holy Father reminded us that “(t)here needs to be a distinctive way of looking at things, a way of thinking, policies, an educational programme, a lifestyle and a spirituality which together generate resistance to the assault of the technocratic paradigm” and create a better alternative.

The next Living Laudato Si’ workshop is scheduled on 29 May to 2 June 2018, inclusive of travel time, at Balay Laudato Si’ in Bendum, Bukidnon in Mindanao, Philippines. For more information, please email ecojcap@gmail.com. Advisory on food, lodging, and travel costs will be furnished as soon as these are finalised.

A copy of the Living Laudato Si’ workbook (21 to 25 January 2018) can be viewed or downloaded hereas a PDF file (around 8 MB).

Pan-Amazonia is a territory that encompasses areas of nine countries with seven million square kilometers and covers a third of all of South America. The future of the planet depends a lot on the Amazon basin. The future of all human beings also depends on our taking care of these living spaces, these forests, these waters, but above all, the wealth and knowledge of its peoples.

This region is profoundly affected by the search for oil and gas, illegal logging, the rapid expansion of livestock and agriculture, and uncontrolled extraction of natural resources.

Throughout the last decades, a series of transformations took place in the territory due to resource production activities. In 1890, there was the rubber extraction and a second boom in the 1940s of this raw material, the fascination with skins and plants in 1960, the boom of wood in 1970, and between the ‘80s and ‘90s was the coca and drug trafficking. And from 2008 until today, the economic model of extractives has intensified, characterized by industrialization with infrastructure works such as hydroelectric power, roads, ports, among others. There is also illegal fishing and the extraction of gold and minerals that pollute the environment and alter the health of populations.

The intensity of the economic projects in the Amazon seriously threatens the lives of its inhabitants. At the same time, there is the systematic, organized and structured action in recent years to dismantle the fundamental human rights of the Amazon peoples, particularly their rights to land.

The life and territories of the inhabitants of the Amazon and specifically its Indigenous Peoples are severely affected by the economic and development model that is imposed on the Amazon. It is a model that is based on the overexploitation of the region’s natural assets to incorporate them into the productivity and consumption logic of the main economic centers of the world.

The increasingly intense and accelerated exploitation of the Amazon’s forests, water, and land is made possible by stripping people of their ties with the territories, enabling the takeover and control of large companies and economic groups. The actions of the States, which are mainly responsible for the care of the common good, are directed most of the time to facilitate this logic of accumulation and exploitation, with very short-term and colonial views of development, contributing to a situation of permanent violations of fundamental human rights.

Since 1994, some treaties were carried out within the framework of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) that provided the basis for what was later proposed by then Brazil President Fernando Henrique Cardoso (FHC) and which was then set up in 2000 as the Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America (IIRSA). The objective of the IIRSA is to execute the material projects (roads, dams, hydroelectric plants, ports, airports, communications) complementary to the structural adjustment plan according to the Washington Consensus, a package of economic policy recommendations that called for a market-based approach and reduction of state involvement for developing countries, Latin America in particular. These projects were deemed necessary for a new phase of capital accumulation.

The Amazon tends to be seen as “nature,” a “resources reserve,” an “inexhaustible source,” or even a “demographic vacuum” – ideas that end up assumed by the national ruling classes in their relations of subordinate integration or “voluntary servitude.”

The Pan-Amazonian region encompasses nine countries in an area of seven million sq km, and covers a third of the South American continent.

The growing importance of China in the world economic scenario opens a new gap in the foreign relations of the countries of the American continent, a gap that was not offered in the world political geography since the end of the Cold War. The business opportunities with Asia, especially China, the main importer of commodities in the world, led to the expansion of capital in the field of agribusiness (soybean, corn, meat, eucalyptus), mining companies and large companies. civil engineering and construction (roads, power stations, ports, etc.), fundamental for the generation of the infrastructure that other sectors needed.

We are thus in a phase of a deep regional, continental and global reconfiguration, with the opening of a new phase of capital accumulation and new alliances. And the major implications of this new megaproject for the Amazon, especially in relation to the scale change they represent, are enormous.

Access to land, water, minerals from the subsoil, oil and gas enter into a dispute between sectors of unequal power. If from the 1960s and 1970s we spoke of an initial phase of megaprojects for the Amazon, now we are facing a megaproject that brings together the structures of several megaprojects.

Extractive and infrastructure megaprojects are part of another form of human adaptation: industrialization. Megaprojects require large amounts of energy, depend on thousands of people for their construction, receive high amounts of financial and technological capital, and transform the forest landscape and hydrological flows where these are located.

In short, the megaprojects transform the adaptation mode to the forest, a change that turns out to be particularly abrupt in rural areas where the traditional forms of adaptation are still valid. In the case of the Amazonian megaprojects, we face extremely rapid processes of industrialization in which rural areas are transformed into urbanized areas within a few years.

In response to this “development” proposal, we note that in general, local peoples are not consulted before the installation of the megaproject on the “industrialization” of their territories and the change in their mode of adaptation. That is why these are forced processes of industrialization of the jungle.

The magnitude of the social and environmental impact generated by this development model is of a qualitatively superior level due to the size and geographic scope of the projects, the number of works carried out simultaneously, and the amount of capital injected into them.

Thus, the Amazon is in a dynamic designed to integrate the subcontinent in the global market through a geographical redesign of great magnitude or spatial expansion. The Amazon therefore takes on particular relevance, not only for the peoples that inhabit the region, but for the entire planet and humanity.

Caring for the Amazon, caring for its Indigenous Peoples and communities

The Amazon is one of the corners of our Common Home (Laudato Si’) where a great and rich cultural diversity coexists. This wealth of human experience includes the nearly 400 Indigenous Peoples – diverse among themselves – that inhabit the Amazon region.

They represent a multiplicity of knowledge and practices, a linguistic plurality, a spiritual richness and dense cosmologies, and a perception of the territory which unites them to their ancestors, to other forms of life, and to the sacred dimension of existence (LS 146).

Members of the Task Force on Environment and Economic Justice of the Secretariat for Higher Education, and Alfredo is fourth from left.

They mean, in short, the diversity of ways of being, and being in the world and with the world. We start from a recognition of the indispensable contribution that Indigenous Peoples provide in the search for solutions and alternatives to the current socio-environmental crisis that we face in our Common Home.

The challenges of the Amazon and its Indigenous Peoples are huge and daunting and hope is fragile. But there are also signs of life and of great wealth for the whole planet. We see hope from the multiple cultural expressions of Good Living, of Tajimat (an economic inclusion project of the Awajun people through cacao and banana value chains) and abundance, the dense mythical narrative and its cosmologies, their own knowledge, practices, and modes of social organization and land use, the biodiversity kept by these peoples ancestrally, and the community forms of ownership and use of natural assets.

The situation of more than 100 indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation that have references in the Amazon need to be highlighted in a special way. These are peoples that, by their own will or by the pressures of advancing economic borders, opted to control the relationship they want to maintain with their environment and their culture.

This text is part of the report of Alfredo Ferro Medina SJ, Coordinator of Servicio Jesuita a la Panamazonia (SJPAM) of the Conferencia de Provinciales en América Latina y el Caribe (CPAL), to the Task Force on Environment and Economic Justice of the Secretariat for Higher Education that met in Rome from 15 to 17 January 2018. He may be reached through his email: alferrosj@gmail.com.

Pedro Walpole SJ, Coordinator for Ecojesuit, a network of Jesuits and Jesuit partners that is moving ecological agendas and seeking better collaboration, will share his thoughts on ecology and economy that have the same word origin and should be supportive of the whole of humanity and our common home and oikos when both are balanced. But with ecology and economy becoming mutually exclusive and the commons now in the hands of corporate extraction and pollution, the models of economic growth are greatly challenged. And the path forward is not merely a flip-over of the current economic model, but a path that begins with every person and with every community. The change must come from within and in the discovery anew of what people value and are willing to commit to in solidarity and in reconciliation.

Apart from this public lecture, there will be a Roundtable Dialogue on Environmental Justice on 22 February featuring contributions from the Environmental Justice and the Common Good Faculty Collaborative in Santa Clara University: Christopher Bacon, Associate Professor, Department of Environmental Studies and Sciences; Jasmin Llamas, Assistant Professor, School of Education and Counseling Psychology; Edwin Maurer, Professor, School of Engineering; Chad Raphael, Professor, Department of Communication; Iris Stewart-Frey, Associate Professor, Department of Environmental Studies and Sciences; and Tseming Yang, Professor, School of Law.

Bannan Institutes launched this activity in 2016, Is There A Common Good in Our Common Home? A Summons to Solidarity Environmental Justice and the Common Good, that explores pressing racial, economic, gender, and environmental justice issues facing our world today and seeks to respond to Pope Francis’ call in Laudato Si’:

“The present condition of global society, where injustices abound and growing numbers of people are deprived of basic human rights and considered expendable, the principle of the common good immediately becomes, logically and inevitably, a summons to solidarity…” (LS 158)

]]>http://www.ecojesuit.com/bannan-memorial-lecture-2018-not-a-roadmap-but-a-trail-environmental-justice-in-the-commons/11122/feed/2Campion Centre of Ignatian Spirituality: 2018 program on Being with God in Naturehttp://www.ecojesuit.com/campion-centre-of-ignatian-spirituality-2018-program-on-being-with-god-in-nature/11172/
http://www.ecojesuit.com/campion-centre-of-ignatian-spirituality-2018-program-on-being-with-god-in-nature/11172/#commentsWed, 31 Jan 2018 00:34:36 +0000http://www.ecojesuit.com/?p=11172

Being with God in Nature at the Campion Centre of Ignatian Spirituality is a ministry that emerged “out of the desire to invite people to experience the presence that is God in Nature in the Australian landscape, in the hope that with their spiritual encounter with the Spirit there, they would begin an ecological conversion and change they live with the Earth,” according to Peter Saunders, who coordinates the ministry and is one of the ministry’s spiritual directors.

“With the rise of the industrial world over the last couple of centuries, more and more men and women have become urbanised and as result, more disconnected from Nature. We have come to see ourselves as the masters of Nature, with the Earth being an object for us to use to make our lives more comfortable. In this process, we have lost our connection with God’s presence in the Universe.” Thus, this ministry responds to Pope Francis’ invitation in Laudato Si’ “to reunite with God in the Earth, in the whole universe.”

A variety of opportunities are provided for people to spend time in a group, at times in silence, listening to God’s presence in nature by taking people out into the Australian wilderness as well as experiencing nature in our urban settings. Peter, who is also a keen bush walker and has great interest in inviting people into the experience of God’s presence in nature, shared the 2018 full list of retreats and walking prayer days, among others.

Storms and typhoons in the Philippines during 2017 went without massive disruption this year until 11 December when Tropical Storm Urduja (international Kai-tak) struck, followed by Typhoon Vinta (Tembin) and Tropical Storm Agaton (Bolaven) in the first days of 2018.

These storms came slow and heavy with rain, along a more westbound path (not immediately turning north) and on a more southerly trend, as is expected late in the season.

Photo from Department of Social Welfare and Development, Philippines.

Vinta hit hardest the Mindanao provinces of Lanao del Norte and Zamboanga del Norte resulting in landslides and flooding, with over 260 deaths and much displacement in six provinces in Mindanao and two in Luzon.

The third hardest-hit province in Mindanao was Lanao del Sur, where the existing catastrophe of a war just ended in Marawi City and which was subjected to 136 days of the bloodiest war in the Philippines since World War II. Thus, even before the rains of Vinta hit Marawi, there were already 200,000 people trying to resettle in a city reduced to rubble.

There were 34 storms recorded for the Pacific with 22 tropical storms entering the Philippine area of responsibility, six of which developed into typhoons hitting the Philippines.

As of the present, there is limited information from the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council on the scope and impact of the damage to lives, infrastructure, livelihoods, agriculture, among others. Weather bulletins were regularly issued as the storms and typhoons passed through, but there was no information available for a post-disaster assessment, a service that was previously done and useful information for those who want to respond.

Likewise, the Disaster Response Operations Monitoring and Information Center of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has nothing on its website regarding relief action or needs. An infographic summary that served as a disaster response update for Vinta and Agaton was obtained from the DSWD Facebook page.

Xavier University-Ateneo de Cagayan in Cagayan de Oro responded through: regular hazard monitoring by the Engineering Resource Center and which issued warning alerts; close coordination with the City Social Welfare and Development and the Philippine Red Cross in responding to internally displaced persons; and provision of water for shower needs and cleaning flooded homes in Cagayan de Oro City, among others.

Going out of the Philippines, the storm picture is larger with China, Japan, and Vietnam also badly affected this year. A simple calendaring of events allows for a clearer perspective of the season and also an appreciation of the range of events from tropical depressions to typhoons and super typhoons. This year, the typhoon season did not really begin for the Northwest Pacific region until July; oftentimes it begins in May.

The seasonality and diversity of storm/typhoon events in the Pacific in 2017 (Photo from Wikipedia).

The depressions and storms dominate rather than typhoons, and these events bring much more rain and possibility of extensive flooding and landslides. The typhoons with high winds can also create surges and coastal flooding while having disastrous impacts on infrastructure, crops, and of course poor housing. Evacuations are an increasing norm in any area potentially to be affected and the impact is greatest on the most vulnerable communities with poor housing.

All of these storms had economic losses but the greatest damage was from typhoon Hato in August hitting China with a cost of almost US$ 7 billion and with over 50 people dead. Another tropical depression hit Vietnam in October with 100 lives lost due to the flooding. Typhoon Lan in October was one of the largest typhoons on record and the third most intense tropical cyclone worldwide in 2017 and while this is not a world record this year, typhoon Lan is nonetheless an indicator of an extreme event.

Though these events by definition have low winds, it is the slow-moving pace and intensive rains they carry that make depressions and storms so devastating for areas prone to floods and landslides in the uplands. Typhoon Damrey at the start of November resulted in 142 lives lost in Vietnam.

The total loss of life due to Pacific storms this last year is 865 and total damages is running to US$ 14.3 billion. The lessons learned are hardly new, but more people are learning them and one would like to think the response is improving, which hopefully the research will show.

Yet it is not enough.

What we have to do

Preparedness and preparations are again the most critical and effective responses for communities and local governments located in areas with flooding and landslide hazards.

Broader and wider collaboration beyond known institutions and organizations need to be developed and strengthened while building teams who can engage on the ground.

Communication centers and ways for people to get involved are easily facilitated with social media and online networks but require integration with responsible local governments and national government agencies.

Society-climate relations need broader awareness so that there is full participation in the social recognition of the climate problems as they get worse and communities need to relocate within the area of livelihoods.

What we have to live through

Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) hammered the Philippine east coast in 2013 and the recovery is more like pulling back things to how they were before the disaster. Some individual communities are able to build back better and people do understand storm surge now, but a positive and active resilience is limited. Urduja went through eastern Visayas affecting Tacloban some of the same communities that Yolanda hit, and it is evident that evacuation centers are a focal point of accountability as so many homes are gravely at risk.

Even as there is the ability to build houses for some, there is a need to focus on evacuation centers. Given the slow-paced response, and if things are stable, it will take 20 years to build houses for these communities living in high-risk areas.

The opportunity for livelihood and collective community commitment to stream management, forest protection, fire control, among others, are the foundations for good housing and the necessary reduction in vulnerability.

It is not helpful to give a business response such as planting rubber trees and oil palm in sloping land (for the potential livelihood economic gains) and expect this vegetation to act like a forest in the upper catchment.

The response has to be integrated with the social, economic, and geomorphological realities of the area, the appropriate vegetation, and the extreme climate that we will have to continue to calibrate.

With worsening climate change, the problems are beyond the scope of present operations and we are all severely challenged. National, regional, as well as global collaboration in the coming years for the best mechanisms are crucial if we need to respond effectively.

The major problem is far from being addressed. There is not yet a proactive anticipation and communication of the problem as we can see with government responses to the preparation for and impact assessment of storm and typhoon events.

Globally, there are nine countries that completed their readiness programs to prioritize the Green Climate Fund and submitted their plans. These are El Salvador, Colombia, Benin, Ghana, Kenya, Uzbekistan, Nepal, and from the Pacific, the Philippines and Fiji.

A Doppler radar system is finally obtained using dual polarization that can tell the density of the storm, notably the volume of rain it is carrying, and this information does get communicated with warnings of intense and continuous rains. But both the translation and communication of the readings, as well as the interpretation of the hazards on the ground in terms of the watershed are still gravely lacking.

With the recent flooding in Zamboanga del Norte, it is a “surprise” that extensive logging is still allowed in the Philippines and the magnanimous response of planting rubber trees and oil palms appears to compensate for any damage that might be done. The absurdity of this dynamic is only one of multiple blind spots in natural resource management in the Philippines, and probably in many other neighbouring countries as well

]]>http://www.ecojesuit.com/what-happened-during-storm-year-2017/11111/feed/0United climate action for the common home: A statement from Ecojesuit in Bonn COP23http://www.ecojesuit.com/united-climate-action-for-the-common-home-a-statement-from-ecojesuit-in-bonn-cop23/11047/
http://www.ecojesuit.com/united-climate-action-for-the-common-home-a-statement-from-ecojesuit-in-bonn-cop23/11047/#commentsThu, 30 Nov 2017 00:40:59 +0000http://www.ecojesuit.com/?p=11047

The Ecojesuit team in Bonn, November 2017, learning from the COP23 global process.

Ecojesuit, an ecology network of Jesuits and partners from around the world, joined other organizations at COP23 to learn from the global process that is responding to the challenges of climate change and its impact on people and the planet, share experiences, communicate urgent concerns from the local to the global, and take greater collaborative action.

COP23 put small islands on the world map, some of which are disappearing and increasing people’s vulnerability, and gave vital importance to shifting to a low global emission economy. We affirm the urgency to implement and increase the contribution to the Green Climate Fund, given the necessary focus on small island developing states (SIDS). The human tragedies faced by local people losing land and livelihood is already happening. We affirm the need to meet the more ambitious challenge of 1.5 degrees Celsius.

We seek more united action and communication through better collaboration in:

Implementing programs and protocols for disaster risk reduction and supporting SIDS and other communities throughout the world already suffering from massive floods and droughts as a result of climate change

Shifting from fossil fuels and destructive extraction industries that degrade both the environment and human rights, most often experienced by Indigenous Peoples and the marginalized who are increasingly criminalized for defending human rights, and this includes divestment efforts and an avoidance of a return to nuclear energy

Initiating and seeking greater agro-ecological food production, contributing to more collective forest, watershed, and marine resource management, reducing waste and ensuring the protection of adequate natural biomes so that agriculture and other land uses can be balanced, preventing ecosystem collapse

Engaging with communities, faith-based organizations, and church groups in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals and in this way, learn to simplify personal lifestyles and needs. The importance of personal reflection, such as the prayerful use of an ecological examen, helps sustain action and build dialogue and collaboration across parishes and institutions.

Promoting an education that ensures integral learning and participation and capable of forming a new generation with hope and responsibility to create a better world. The development of knowledge products like Healing Earth text, Carbon Challenge, Flights for Forests and strategic outcomes from environmental conferences and workshops are resources needing integration into an educational model for change.

In living Laudato Si’, social, educational, and pastoral institutions and works are called to be a more decisive witness to and engagement with the cry of the people and the cry of the earth. In reflecting upon the state of the world, we need to discern more deeply our priorities and commitment for more focused collective participation through the Church that cares for creation. Pope Francis reminds us that “the ecological crisis is also a summons to profound interior conversion…and that Jesus lived in full harmony with creation…” He thus calls us in the Church to accompany communities of justice and practice in sharing a moral compass and engendering greater hope.

Nearly two years ago, the international community gathered within this UNFCCC forum, with most of its highest government representatives, and after a long and complex debate arrived at the adoption of the historic Paris Agreement. It saw the achievement of consensus on the need to launch a shared strategy to counteract one of the most worrying phenomena our humanity is experiencing: climate change.

The will to follow this consensus was highlighted by the speed with which the Paris Agreement entered into force, less than a year after its adoption.

The Agreement indicates a clear path of transition to a low- or zero-carbon model of economic development, encouraging solidarity and leveraging the strong links between combating climate change and poverty. This transition is further solicited by the climatic urgency that requires greater commitment from the countries, some of which must endeavour to take a leading role in this transition, bearing in mind the needs of the most vulnerable populations.

These days you are gathered in Bonn to carry out another important phase of the Paris Agreement: the process of defining and constructing guidelines, rules and institutional mechanisms so that it may be truly effective and capable of contributing to the achievement of the complex objectives it proposes. In such a path, it is necessary to maintain a high level of cooperation.

From this perspective, I would like to reaffirm my urgent call to renew dialogue on how we are building the future of the planet. We need an exchange that unites us all, because the environmental challenge we are experiencing, and its human roots, regards us all, and affects us all. […] Unfortunately, many efforts to seek concrete solutions to the environmental crisis are often frustrated for various reasons ranging from denial of the problem to indifference, comfortable resignation, or blind trust in technical solutions. (LS 14)

We should avoid falling into the trap of these four perverse attitudes, which certainly do not help honest research or sincere and productive dialogue on building the future of our planet: denial, indifference, resignation and trust in inadequate solutions.

Moreover, we cannot limit ourselves only to the economic and technological dimension: technical solutions are necessary but not sufficient; it is essential and desirable to carefully consider the ethical and social impacts and impacts of the new paradigm of development and progress in the short, medium and long term.

This means, in effect, propagating a “responsible awareness” towards our common home (LS 202, 231) through the contribution of all, in explaining the different forms of action and partnership between the various stakeholders, some of whom do not lack to highlight the ingenuity of the human being in favour of the common good.

While I send my greetings to you, Mr President, and to all the participants in this Conference, I hope that, with your authoritative guidance and that of the Fiji Islands, the work of these days will be inspired by the same collaborative and prophetic spirit manifested during the COP21. This will enable an acceleration of awareness-raising and consolidate the will to make effective decisions to counteract the phenomenon of climate change while at the same time fighting poverty and promoting true human development as a whole. This commitment is supported by the wise providence of God Most High.

In a related event, a delegation of leaders from the Pacific Island states and 46 members of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat met with Pope Francis on their way to COP23 in Bonn and shared their climate concerns . Pope Francis, in his address to the delegation, envisioned an “earth without borders that calls for the need for a global outlook, international cooperation and solidarity, and a shared strategy, to address environmental problems.”